Contact Center-as-a-Service: When It Makes Sense | Market Insights™
Contact Center-as-a-Service
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During a global pandemic with a dire economic outlook, one surprising segment experienced its fastest growth in recent years – Customer Experience Management (CXM) services. Driven by increased demand for digital and other factors, this market seems to have long enough legs to extend into the coming years. But what’s behind this unexpected growth in CXM in an otherwise subdued economy, and will it last? For more on our analysis of this promising area, read on.
As most major economies were shut down partially or almost completely in the first half of the year to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across the globe were adversely impacted in 2020. And while some industries such as high-tech or Fast Growth Tech (FGT) fared comparatively better than others like travel and hospitality, overall, the economy looked grim.
With such a dire economic outlook, it was largely assumed that the same would hold for the Customer Experience Management (CXM) services market, given the segment’s dependence on overall economic health for its growth. Gauged by the slow first half of the year, the downcast business outlook, and the huge challenge facing CXM service providers to shift to a Work from Home (WFH) model to continue running their businesses, Everest Group projected the market would shrink by 4-5 percent in 2020 compared to 2019.
However, in a complete reversal of early trends, the CXM market managed to grow at one of the highest paces in recent years, recording 3-5 percent growth in 2020 to stand at around US$90 billion. And it doesn’t look like growth is coming to an end for this sector, as the numbers reported by some of the largest publicly-listed CXM service providers in 2021 look robust and point towards an optimistic future for this market.
This begs the question: Why hasn’t the CXM market been impacted as severely as was widely expected during the early phase of the pandemic spread? We see several underlying factors that have been at work. In our upcoming CXM State of the Market Report slated for release later this year, these factors will be explored in greater depth. Below we discuss some of the factors that contributed to the segment’s growth and raise questions that need to be addressed further.
The following factors are playing a role in CXM services growth:
Here are some of the issues we see that need further exploration:
Despite these factors, the long-term prospects for the CXM services market look favorable, especially with a heightened awareness around the need for superior CX to build differentiation in the market. This change will be hinged around digital CX, where most enterprises lack enough experience and require third-party support to execute the vision they have for their business. Along with green shoots of economic recovery emerging in several regions after a difficult year, service providers who possess CX capabilities have plenty of opportunities to look forward to.
Sharang Sharma, Practice Director: [email protected]
David Rickard, Vice President: [email protected]
Shirley Hung, Vice President: [email protected]
With one of the largest acquisitions in the contact center outsourcing market in recent years, Sitel Group is poised to become a powerhouse with its acquisition of SYKES Enterprises, Inc. This union will likely set off greater investment in customer experience management services (CXM) and more industry consolidation. Read on to find out what this big deal will mean.
The contact center outsourcing market is huge, about 90 billion dollars in annual revenues, and the industry is seeing more attention and growth than ever. So, the announcement of the agreement of Sitel Group acquiring all of SYKES’ outstanding shares in a transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion is another in a growing list of investments in this space, albeit a large one.
Over the last two to three years, most acquisitions by large contact center providers have focused on bringing new capabilities and technologies to an existing footprint, whereas the Sitel Group / SYKES deal calls out gaining additional global presence as one of the main reasons for the acquisition. We have not seen something of this scale for a few years, probably not since the Concentrix acquisition of Convergys.
This acquisition forms a $4 billion customer experience management services (CXM) organization with over 150,000 agents, making Sitel Group one of the three largest organizations in the industry alongside Teleperformance and Concentrix. In this blog, we’ll explore what this acquisition means for Sitel Group, its existing and potential customers, as well as the CXM industry as a whole.
Here are a few of the key impacts we expect:
In terms of vertical expertise, Sitel Group and SYKES have complementary strengths, with Sitel Group bringing presence in the retail, insurance, and public sector spaces and SYKES bringing strength in the technology and healthcare industries.
While Sitel Group’s acquisition of SYKES will bring additional and much-needed digital capabilities to the new combined business, a company the size of the new organization cannot deliver change and adjust to new offerings and skills overnight. It may take some time to fully deliver new digital capabilities at scale.
As the contact center industry aims to better understand the customer and improve customer experience, we’re seeing many investments in the market.
Service providers across the board are investing in technologies and skillsets to become more digital and get ahead of the curve to offer better customer experiences. They are finding organizations more willing to spend money to improve customer service, an area where in the past, they treated simply as a cost base that needed to be reduced, but are now recognizing its potential strategic and topline business impact. Smaller service providers are taking advantage of their agility and are quickly adapting to a digital-first CXM business, and larger providers are having to work hard to keep pace with the rate of digital adoption.
Expect to see more public and non-public deals happening. With the size of this market and everyone working towards digital transformation, a trend that has further accelerated due to vulnerabilities exposed by COVID-19, the contact center outsourcing industry is really ripe for investment.
These deals will result in a consolidation in the marketplace but with bigger market growth. Penetration of contact center outsourcing could increase from roughly 30 percent to upwards of 35 percent in the next few years – resulting in a faster rate of growth than we’ve seen in the past decade.
It will not only be due to big service providers getting even larger. Smaller service providers will need to rapidly articulate their differentiation to remain relevant in a crowded marketplace, such as in a process area or industry domain; otherwise, they run the risk of being in a race towards the bottom.
You can also attend our LinkedIn Live session, Who is Leading Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services in Europe?, to learn the results of our recently completed PEAK Matrix® assessment showcasing our latest CXM research in the EMEA region.
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